“Yeah…that’s what I figured, Bible boy.” She grinned. “So, you’re familiar with the layout of this kind of shop, then?”

Familiar with the layout? “Jesus, Della. I don’t exactly go all the time.”

“But you know the kind of things they sell.”

To say Tucker was uncomfortable with this conversation was putting it mildly. He’d rather be zipped in a tent with a skunk. “Well, yeah…” He wouldn’t say he was a goddamn connoisseur, though.

“Good. You can give me a tour.”

Tucker turned, gaping at her. “What?” He stared at her for a second or two longer than he should have and had to swerve abruptly back into his lane when he finally returned his attention to the road.

“Take the exit. Let’s go in. My shrink appointment’s not till one.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. Hell no.

“Relax, I just want to look. I’m not going to buy anything.”

Oh well, sure thing, then… He could just imagine that conversation with Arlo. So I took your sister into Frieda’s and helped her pick out a vibrator for those needs of hers.

Never going to happen.

“Please, Tuck.”

Tucker’s hands tightened around the wheel. As a kid, he’d often been called Tuck, but he’d outgrown it in adulthood. Della was about the only person now who occasionally shortened his name, and there was something about the ease with which it slid off her tongue that got to him every time. There was an intimacy about it that slugged him right in the belly.

“How about we take one step at a time?” he suggested. “Tinder dating first. Sex shops a little further down the track. And oh…look,” he said as he blew past the exit, “too late.”

She stuck out her tongue. “Chicken.”

The accusation, no matter how playful, didn’t sit well. Ordinarily, he’d have been totally up for a woman wanting a private tour of a sex shop and more than willing to help her test out her purchases afterward. But this was Della.

And he did not think about Della like that.

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“Do you think it’s too early? For me to start dating?”

Della was standing at the large window in Dr. Sanchez’s office, which overlooked the Capitol building in central Denver. The sun blazed outside despite the mercury barely making it above the freezing point, and she basked in the warmth radiating from the glass. Once upon a time, Della had dreaded her sessions with her psychiatrist, but not anymore. She’d long ago recognized the good they were doing, and, even a few years down the track, her sessions still felt like a necessary part of her life.

“I think only you can know that.”